


A Children's Book

by jayandalltheotherstars



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Hermione reads a special book, Metafiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 12:01:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7102363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayandalltheotherstars/pseuds/jayandalltheotherstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione reads a muggle book. <br/>It’s always the same Muggle book: a children’s book – a boy with a pair of glasses on the cover. She held it hundreds of times, and hundreds of times she stayed here, watching it, sliding her fingers through the pages, reading those oh-so-familiar names, and then closing it rapidly. She has done it since they have introduced that Muggle thing, she has done it every time she has walked into the bookshop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Children's Book

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Un libro per ragazzi](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/203830) by jaybree. 



**A children’s book**

Din, don. The harp’s clink on the door rings joyfully while the last customer leaves the shop. The woman behind the bench peacefully stores some sheet in a drawer. The square glasses fall on her nose, showing a pair of bright and sweet eyes. She looks out of the window: it’s getting dark – the big cuckoo clock over her head marks some time past eight. She glances between the shelves and notes with a little disappointment that the shelf with the last ‘exclusive popular idea’ by Lavander Brown is unusually vacant: she will have to fill it up again tomorrow.

She leaves her position to go check the other room. And here she finds her: Hermione Granger. She saw that girl growing up under her eyes. Hermione Granger. She saw her laughing and pouting, as appropriate, with Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley. She saw her opening wide her eyes and mouth while she was walking through that door for the first time, making that harp clinking: eleven years ago.

She’s a heroine now. But she comes back every week, looking for “something new to snoop around for”. At the moment, while holding a pair of books under her arm, she’s browsing worriedly through a Muggle volume.

It’s always the same Muggle book: a children’s book – a boy with a pair of glasses on the cover.  Perhaps she held it hundreds of times, and hundreds of times she stayed here, watching it, sliding her fingers through the pages, reading those oh-so-familiar names, and then closing it rapidly. She has done it, since they have introduced _that Muggle thing_ , she has done it every time she has walked into the bookshop.

“Miss Granger, I wouldn’t bother you, but I have to close the store. Sorry,” she reminds her, jovial, laying a hand on her shoulder.

The girl shakes herself, as if she’s going out of a trance; then she addresses the woman with a smile which seems to ask forgiveness. “I’m sorry, I was trying to understand if…” she trails off, avoiding to keep talking. She rests the book on its shelf. “Anyway, I would like to take those.” She holds the two books she’s got under her arm: _New frontiers of Transfiguration_ by Minerva McGonagall and _Hogwarts, a new history_ by Doreus Fletcher.

“Sure,” she nods and begins to go to the cash desk, but she can’t help to look between Miss Granger’s perplexed expression and the red and blue paperback on the shelf.

“Miss Granger, can I ask you something?” The girl consents and the woman choose to continue. “Why don’t you buy it? It’s obvious you would like to read it.”

“I’m not sure it’s my kind of thing. It’s a Muggle children’s book, isn’t it?” She says it, but she doesn’t believe it one second.

“You know better than me that it’s not like that.”

*

She puts calmly the book on her lap. Now she’s watching it with a strange veneration. She can’t hold back her tears and she doesn’t even want to dry them.

“What are you reading?” Ron’s question comes muffled.

“Nothing, just a children’s book.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this story for a contest during the period of the last movie release... we were all emotional about the ending of an era. So, this story is a kind of homage to the saga.
> 
> PS Yes, Hermione is reading Harry Potter.


End file.
